Mathematics Survival Guide

Last revised: 31 August 2001

 

Many of the little details in this will be out of date and so some links will be broken or way out of date. I just cribbed it because of the Appendix. However, there are some interesting things in the "Student Responsibilities" and "How to Solve It" for example.

• Introduction
• Overview
• The System
• Student Responsibilities
• How To Solve It
• Help
• Course Registration
• Resolving Problems
• Appendix A: The Hidden Script
  • 1.``I really know this material, but I just don't do well on tests.''
  • 2. ``The test is too long; if I'd had more time I could have done really well.''
  • 3. ``The tests aren't like the homework.''
  • 4. ``Careless mistakes keep killing me. I make a lot of stupid mistakes''
  • 5. ``Why didn't I get more partial credit?''
  • 6. ``I didn't know what you wanted'', or ``What do you want here?''
  • 7. ``I knew more than the other students, and helped them, but they got a higher grade on the test!''
  • 8. ``Why can't the top score be 100%? Aren't you going to scale the grades?''
  • 9. ``I just don't use the book; I can't understand it at all.''
  • 10. ``Why do I have to memorize this? Memorization isn't learning. Besides I know I'm going to forget it anyway.''
  • 11.``Why should we do these long problems -- they won't be on the test away''
  • 12. ``I've always been good at mathematics until this course.''
  • 13. ``I can never understand my class notes; I don't read them. I didn't follow you that day.''
  • 14. ``I couldn't make it to class yesterday; did I miss anything important?''
  • 15. ``Where are we ever going to use this stuff?''
• About this document ...